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System gets 'A' in technology101805 news13Athens Banner-HeraldJEFFERSON - Report cards are due out today in Jackson County. But anyone with a computer and an Internet connection could have viewed the information last night.--> System gets 'A' in technology Jackson County Story Photos Jackson County High School seniors Laura Evans, left, and Leslie Pope work in the school's video studio Monday, showing visitors student-made productions. Allen Sullivan/Staff

Jackson County High School teacher Jonathan Fite helps student Whitney Veal on Monday in a class on building resumés and employment documents. Allen Sullivan/Staff

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By Todd DeFeo | todd.defeo@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 11:02 PM on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 JEFFERSON - Report cards are due out today in Jackson County.

But anyone with a computer and an Internet connection could have viewed the information last night.

Initiatives like online access to grades, digital meeting agendas and educational software that students have available for use in the classroom brought the 6,000-student system first-place honors from the National School Boards Association, which announced in the recently released Digital School Boards Survey that Jackson County schools are No. 1 in the nation for medium-sized districts.

Neighboring Clarke County ranked third in the same category, while nearby White County ranked sixth.

"We want everybody to feel like they're part of the technology movement," said Patti Bearden, an instructional technology specialist at Jackson County Comprehensive High School.

More than 2,500 school systems from around the country competed at three different levels based on school-system size.

Schools were ranked based on a survey of how the systems use technology in the boardroom, as well as the classroom.

The Jackson County school board will be recognized at a National School Boards Association conference on Oct. 27 in Denver.

At their meetings, members of the Jackson County school board have started using eBoard, a service that allows for paperless meetings - with agenda items recorded on laptops, instead of reams of paper, said Keith Everson, the school system's assistant superintendent for human resources and support services.

But the technology isn't limited to the school system's administration building. In his business law class, for example, high school teacher Jonathan Fite puts practice test questions on a server available to students.

"They can access them whenever they want to," Fite said. "If I were a student in here, that would be the biggest advantage to me."

The school system spends $670,000 a year for laptops for each one of its teachers. And there are about 2,500 computers throughout the school system that students can use, though personal laptops for the roughly 6,000 students - like the controversial program proposed in Cobb County - doesn't appear likely anytime soon.

With the Just 5 Clicks software, teachers can track how students have done on recent tests. Teachers "can tell exactly what their strengths and areas of weakness are," Everson said.

With SuccessMaker, a reading program students can use on the computer, students can practice their reading skills.